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It was 9:18 a.m. on Thursday morning, October 8, 2020, when the call came in. I had taken a morning break from work, and the ring jarred me as I rested on the couch. Back in those days, I was working at least 12 hours a day as librarian, tech guru, and teacher. We were all juggling an exponential pandemic-induced workload. While most of my colleagues had gone back to in-person work the month prior, for me, COVID had performed its fearsome magic and I remained working from home, psychologically unable to disrupt my isolation.
“Hi Mary, ____ here,” my principal’s voice had the immediate effect of straightening my spine, somehow alerting my skeletal and nervous system as to what was to come. “This is serious.” He waited a beat. “Can you tell me about a recent art assignment you gave to your 8th grade class?”
As a K-12 school librarian, I had worked for the past 16 years in the same school district and had mostly taught within my subject area. This year, however, I had agreed to take on teaching a section of 8th grade art - a subject I enjoyed but of which I had no substantial knowledge. My mind scrambled to recall which assignment could be in question.
My principal gave me the artist’s name and I raced up the narrow staircase of my home, rushing to boot my laptop as he briefly described the piece of art. As he spoke about the work, my mind filled in the image and I couldn’t see what could possibly be the issue.
We had been studying post-1960 art and one of the artists I had selected was Keith Haring - a relevant and engaging painter whose work had emerged, in large part, as a response to the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. Haring ultimately died of AIDS and his work is still recognizable today as both emblematic and consequential. All of this I learned on the fly as I created a brand-new-to-me curriculum. I clearly remember one particular Sunday I spent developing lesson after lesson for this new class – hours of looking at artwork from dozens of artists with whom I was unfamiliar. For Haring, I had chosen a painting that had two genderless stick figures kneeling and holding a heart in the background and a drawing of Mickey Mouse in the foreground, holding his tail.
When my computer finally loaded up the assignment, I know my principal could hear my genuine breath of shock as the veil of illusion was lifted and I saw what the painting really was.
Indeed, Mickey was not holding his tail.
As if this hadn’t been enough, the four minute video of Haring’s work I had assigned (one of those brief showcases that breezes through a hundred or more images in a very short time) included at least one additional inappropriate piece of art I hadn’t noticed.
UGH!
As a teacher in 2020 America, one does not make this mistake without repercussive fallout. Whatever the particulars are of who threw the gauntlet and how, I can only say this – my administration was supportive of me and, although policies and procedures were followed, I absolutely still had a job. However, the attempted actions taken by those involved – of which I have tried and will continue to try to understand with compassion - effectively dismantled a nearly 30 year long career in public service and caused a long and painful descent into some very unexpected psychological breakage. Working with my doctor, it became apparent that I needed the remainder of the school year to repair and recover and was definitely not capable of returning to school. Luckily, I had accrued almost exactly enough sick time to see me through.
Have you ever thought about whether if you went crazy, you would know it? Or would you be too crazy for that particular awareness to activate? Both were true for me. My actions in the months that followed were palpably nuts, although I didn’t really see it that way until seen through the lens that only a daughter can provide. Although I lived in a different town from where I worked, family members from the class in question lived very nearby. I convinced myself that everyone, everyone, on my street and in my neighborhood – hell in the city…the state? thought I was a pedophile. One of my greatest joys in life was to walk for an hour or more each day, but now I couldn’t leave my house. I kept my curtains drawn and if I did leave, I disguised myself with layers and hats and sunglasses, hunching down the street. I unfriended almost anyone ever associated with my job. I stopped being friendly with the kids on my street. I became convinced that I was being watched, that my computer and phone were being monitored, and that there was a strong possibility I’d be arrested. My world and my perception of my place in it had simply vanished – no ground, no purpose, no reputation – it had all come and it had all dissolved…just like that. In it’s place? An arsenal of fear, pain, and grief…and a tendril of relief.
By May, I knew I couldn’t return to my job. And although some months later I was asked to apply for a regional librarian position and did give it a go, three months in I knew the classroom and indeed schools of any ilk, were no longer for me. The fearless fortitude required to work with children and their parents was no longer in my wheelhouse.
Within the next year and a half I began practicing the dharma, sold my home, retrofitted my RAV4 into a tiny home, left my pension at 28.5 years, and hit the road.
I think back now on how much building my library program had meant to me and how in so many ways I thought it had defined me. The year before COVID I had started a robotics club and taken a group of 4th – 8th graders to an international competition. I was so very proud of reaching these kids – many of whom never joined anything, who struggled to find their own “place” in school. Now, describing my pride, I understand more than ever how impermanent these things we grasp onto are.
For today, my home is on the edge of a forested stream on a land blessed and made holy by the practice and teachings of people who work to understand the illusory nature of things. I am in training to develop compassion for all other beings and to try and feel how they might feel in any given situation. I spend my days in service and meditation, reading and reflection. But, most especially, I am on the path to try and see things how they really are.
Because, you know…apparently it’s pretty easy for me to get things mixed up.
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Pictured above: Me on a walk, spring 2021 when I finally started to visit my favorite neighborhood trail again.